But each rush gleamed a sword in the sunlight to guard her long flow,
And she murmured, methought, with a speech very soft—very low.
“The ways will be long, but the days will be long,” quoth the river,
“To me a long liver, long, long!” quoth the river—the river.
I dreamed of the country that night, of the orchard, the sky,
The voice that had mocked coming after and over and under.
But at last—in a day or two namely—Eleven and I
Were very fast friends, and to him I confided the wonder.
He said that was Echo. “Was Echo a wise kind of bee
That had learned how to laugh; could it laugh in one’s ear and then fly,